What a Real Partnership Is
by UberPest
Summary: A very short piece from Booth's POV on what it means to be a partner. Of course there's a touch of BB for good measure.


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**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Boo. The characters here belong to Fox, Hart Hanson, Kathy Reichs, and company. I'm not making any money on this, just having a little fun.

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**What a Real Partnership Is**

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I knew what it meant to be a partner. Looking back now I realize that it's my very nature and I couldn't change it any more than I could step out of my skin.

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When Jared and I were kids we didn't get along. Hell, we still don't, but we've learned to accept each other. He's my big brother and he was good at looking out for me, but sometimes I had to be there for him instead of the other way around.

There was a time in high school when Jared got in a fight with Mike Miller, the captain of the football team. It wasn't pretty, and I showed up about the time Mike had him up against a locker. I pulled Mike off Jared and worked him over pretty good before Tommy deMarco grabbed me from behind. I don't remember much about the rest of the fight except for the blue stone in Tommy's class ring splitting my upper lip and I needed to get stitches. That, and neither Mike nor Tommy ever bothered Jared or me again.

Jared and I still don't get along very well, but I know we'll be there for each other when it really matters.

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Sometimes when the weather changes I ache. My ribs and back; my feet; my legs. There's a slight burn and a dull ache that radiates from the old breaks. Sometimes I have a slight limp that I can't fight. I always thought it would go away eventually, but I suppose if it did I might run the risk of forgetting.

Bones would tell me the anthropological reason young men fight wars is because the young are resilient. The young can adapt to sleep deprivation and eating garbage—if we eat at all—and abusing our bodies.

I think the reason we fight when we're young is so when we're older we understand what's really important and what's truly worth fighting for.

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When I first met her I thought she was a stuck-up, self-centered, entitled, know-it-all bitch. It was no secret that I really didn't like her at all. She _always_ had to be right and it drove me crazy. We argued all the time—we still do, of course, but it's different now—until we settled into a kind of stony silence. Sometimes we wouldn't speak for days.

Now if we don't speak for a few hours I feel lonely.

It's hard to pinpoint a moment when we went from constantly trying to kill each other to being willing to lay down our lives to protect the other.

She's my partner. She's not just someone I work with; she's my _partner_. It was different this time—different in a way I never had before. Different from Jared and me; different from the Army; different in a way that I can't even begin to put into words.

There was no horns-sounding-from-the-mountains moment of realization. It just happened. She worked into my life so seamlessly and effortlessly I don't know how I existed without her and I'm not entirely sure I'd be able to live without her now.

I've been in love with her for a long time. I must have known it even if I didn't realize it. Though when the realization did hit, it was like a ton of bricks.

I was shopping.

I didn't even realize I did it. Honestly. One minute I was causally picking up my normal stuff—milk, bread, cold cuts, beer—and the next I was looking in my cart. That's when I saw it.

The soy cheese.

I don't eat soy cheese. I _won't_ eat soy cheese. But Bones does.

When I got home I made a quick inventory of what I had in my apartment—soy cheese, Boca burgers, organic coffee, one of her anthropology journals—and it hit me.

I love her.

It was all so obvious, but I didn't see it. The two of us together, we're better together than we ever were apart. When we first met I was angry and had a dangerously quick temper. Now I'm happy most of the time and can joke with her instead of snapping with anger. And that's because of her.

I can't tell her any of that, of course. Not yet anyway. But I will—when she's ready to hear it.

I pick up the phone and ask if she's ready to go for a ride out to a crime scene. When she answers I hear the smile in her voice—one that wasn't there when I first knew her and I can't help but smile in response.

Even though we're heading out to poke around in a pile of yuck because something terrible happened, I smile when I see her and she smiles back at me. We're happy to be together no matter what lies ahead. No matter what we're up against we know we can handle it together.

Because we're partners.

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_Thanks for reading!_


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